The largest liquidation in crypto history: Who suffered the most losses? Hyperliquid, the "new star of perpetual contracts," is the hardest hit.

This weekend, the crypto world experienced the most dramatic liquidation event in its history.

Written by: Long Yue, Wallstreetcn

The crypto market went through a “bloodbath” over the weekend, with bitcoin plummeting from its all-time high of $126,000 to near $100,000. Nearly $20 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out, and more than 1.6 million traders were liquidated. The worst hit was the perpetual contract exchange Hyperliquid, where assets in over a thousand wallets were reduced to zero and more than $10 billion in positions were liquidated, far exceeding Binance’s $2.4 billion. Its auto-deleveraging mechanism was blamed for exacerbating the market crash.

On October 11, according to data tracking agency CoinGlass, nearly $20 billion worth of crypto bets were forcibly liquidated in the past 24 hours, with over 1.6 million traders liquidated, the vast majority of whom held long positions.

Bitcoin’s price plunged from its all-time high of over $126,000 to a multi-month low of $105,000, though it later rebounded above $110,000. Notably, in the first week of October, bitcoin had surged more than 10%, breaking through the historic high of $126,000.

The price of ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, also plunged from a recent high near $4,700 to below $3,500.

The real disaster occurred in the altcoin market:

• ATOM fell from $4 to $0.001;
• SUI dropped from $3.4 to $0.56;
• APT dropped from $5 to $0.75;
• SEI dropped from $0.28 to $0.07;
• LINK dropped from $22 to $8;
• ADA dropped from $0.8 to $0.3.

The nearly $20 billion wiped out may even be a conservative estimate. CoinGlass commented on social platform X regarding these numbers: "The actual total may be much higher—Binance only reports one liquidation order per second."

The $19.31 billion in liquidations is more than ten times the $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion in liquidation losses during the pandemic and the FTX collapse. The agency described this event as:

The largest liquidation event in crypto history.

Market analysts believe that this crypto “catastrophe” is closely related to the latest tariff remarks made by US President Trump.

Meanwhile, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek called on “regulators to investigate the exchanges with the most liquidations in the past 24 hours.”

So, who suffered the most in this storm?

The emerging perpetual contract exchange Hyperliquid unexpectedly became the center of the liquidation event. Despite its much smaller scale compared to competitors, it topped the liquidation rankings.

Epicenter: Hyperliquid—Massive Liquidations and Mechanism Controversy

Although the platform is much smaller than competitors like Binance, Hyperliquid recorded the highest liquidation amount in the entire market at $10.31 billion, according to CoinGlass data. By comparison, Bybit and Binance had liquidation amounts of $4.65 billion and $2.41 billion, respectively.

Zaheer Ebtikar, founder of crypto fund Split Capital, pointed out that Hyperliquid had “the largest amount of long liquidations and the least matching liquidity.”

According to social media account @LookOnChain, over 1,000 wallets on Hyperliquid were completely wiped out in this market crash, with more than 6,300 wallets in a loss position, totaling losses of over $1.23 billion.

Market participants pointed the finger at the platform’s Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) mechanism. ADL is designed to automatically close out the positions of the profitable or highly leveraged counterparties to protect the exchange when the insurance fund is insufficient to cover forced liquidation losses.

However, many market participants believe that this mechanism actually exacerbated the sell-off in this event.

Spencer Hallarn, Global Head of OTC Trading at crypto investment firm GSR, said: “This mechanism can create complex problems, especially for participants with more complex portfolios.” It may cause the hedged positions of quantitative market makers to be closed out prematurely, thus destabilizing their overall portfolios.

Winners and Losers: Who Profited from the Crash?

However, this disaster was not bad news for everyone. According to CoinDesk, data shows that the top 100 traders on Hyperliquid collectively made $1.69 billion, while the top 100 losing traders lost $743 million. This means a net profit of $951 million, concentrated in the hands of a few highly leveraged short sellers.

The biggest winner was a trader with wallet address 0x5273…065f, who made over $700 million by shorting. The biggest loser, an account named “TheWhiteWhale,” lost $625,000. In addition, a community treasury called Hyperliquid Provider (HLP) profited over $30 million in this sell-off by taking over and closing out losing positions.

Aftershocks Remain: Will Bitcoin Fall Below $100,000?

Although the market has begun to recover some lost ground after the weekend’s plunge, the full impact of the event may take days or even weeks to fully emerge.

Edward Chin, CEO of crypto hedge fund Parataxis, said, “I suspect that in the coming days or weeks, we’ll hear about some funds blowing up or market makers taking heavy losses.”

Currently, the market’s focus has shifted to counterparty risk and whether the event will trigger broader contagion. Caroline Mauron, co-founder of Orbit Markets, pointed out that the next major support level for bitcoin is at $100,000, and falling below this level ‘would mark the end of the bull cycle of the past three years.’

Vincent Liu, Chief Investment Officer at Kronos Research, believes that this plunge “was triggered by US-China tariff concerns but fueled by excessive institutional leverage,” highlighting the close connection between crypto and the macro economy. He expects continued market volatility but suggests watching for rebound signals after the market clears out.